


My Touch

by Medorikoi



Category: Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-17
Updated: 2011-04-17
Packaged: 2017-10-18 06:46:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/186122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medorikoi/pseuds/Medorikoi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'For now his eyes devour me, waiting for the moment I am to fail. Waiting for the moment my good doctor may step in and save me once again or more accurately, one last time.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Touch

He is watching me with burning eyes in the same way that I devour a new clue, searching for the unseen, grasping onto the unobserved with ferocity most of the human race lacks. He thinks he is discreet, my Watson, as he examines my face, my movements, the purpling bruise on my head, observing me, protecting me. The carriage jolts and I let my head thump limply against the wood paneling, his hand is out of his lap, reaching out for me before he can stop himself. I only let him see my eyes drift open when the metal chains of his handcuffs clink against one another. He gives me a tightlipped smile and a nod, his eyes dart out the window. The moment my eyes close he is back on me, waiting. Observing.

My Watson.

To think, if this particular event had occurred in a month, perhaps even as little as a week or in any of the subsequent days, months, and years to follow I would be dead. Sherlock Holmes dead by accidental decapitation. Sherlock Holmes at long last reduced to nothing, so lost without his Boswell.

And yet for now his eyes devour me, waiting for the moment I am to fail. Waiting for the moment my good doctor may step in and save me once again or more accurately, one last time.

Endlessly I have pondered what it is about his Mary that would make him leave me. When questioned he acts much in the way any guilty child might. His hands wring one another as if strangling themselves, a blush forms high on his cheeks and his eyes avoid my own as he speaks in short, clipped tones that it is love for which he leaves. It is immediately after this that he rushes from the room, suddenly remembering an ill patient, an errand to be run.

He runs before I am able to point out the most obvious observable flaw in his logic.

It is also me whom he loves.

Often on these occasions have I taken the most logical route and trailed him in his appointments to see his Mary.

There are in fact observable differences in his love for her, or to be more to the point, there is but one difference that seems to be perpetually occurring. Her touch evokes a reaction in him that mine fails to bring about.

The delicate touching of hands makes the blood rush to his face in a delicate dusting across his cheek bones, a stolen embrace results in a smile I have rarely observed upon my companions face.

I am abandoned for the increased rhythm of a heart, for the one smile I am unable to produce.

Another bump of the carriage and I know we are almost there, judging by the unique size of the pothole and the increased stench of raw sewage I estimate another five minutes ride to the most convenient police lock up. Again I let my head hit against the wood, letting out a deliberate gasp as if overly pained. This time my companion is roused from his silent observations, his eyes hold fire I have rarely seen when not turned on my own person and occasional drug use.

The constable sitting next to me requires no verbal orders but simple cowers under the full weight of Watsons practiced military stare and in a rather undignified manner scrambles to take the seat opposite myself. I am no longer able to watch Watson beneath my eyelashes but I can feel gentle hands urging my head to lean against his solid chest. His handcuffs clink in my ear and cut into my cheek, I make to move but Watson beats me to it, carefully thrusting his arms out toward our timid captors who have more often than not in the past taken orders from us.

"Come on then." He speaks with conviction and a tinge of annoyance, I am compelled to hide my smirk against his coat, which seems if anything to agitate him all the more, I let out a small groan for affect. "Or would you prefer to go straight to the hospital instead?"

The hurried clinking of metal and one warm arm is around me, holding me tight in place, his hand dances across my hairline, across my bruising cheek. My ear presses against his breast and I hear what I had hoped more than assumed would be there.

His heart is pounding.

This may be a result of anger, a side effect of fear perhaps for my well being. I need more data.

All too soon we arrive, my hands unchained by the sheepish man in front of me. The business of taking our names and searching our persons is done quickly and without my aid. Watsons hands lingering on my shoulder, on the small of my back. Again I can feel his gaze burning into me. Once or twice I stumble for his benefit.

Together we sit down in the open area of the lock up, surrounded by the unlucky persons of London. I sit for a moment with my back to Watson and watch the people mill forlornly around us. Petty thieves mingle with gamblers, drunkards, and in the odd case, tax evaders.

I press against Watsons shoulder and nod toward a particularly formidable looking drunkard. His eyes dart around us, sizing up the men, calculating in his mind how many he could take down before he would be overrun. He presses himself firmly against me, his arm coming around my back in a protective stance.

"Keep vigilant Watson or we may find ourselves the newest victim of the gang forming before our very eyes." He nodded seriously as the drunk and the tax evader in the corner came together in deep discussion of nothing more sinister than the likely hood of rain.

"Holmes." He turned toward me, again his hands dancing across the bump on my skull, pulling at my eyelids, keenly observing my reactions. I bat his hands away and let my eyes slide closed as if the effort of keeping them open is more than I can bear.

"I am fine Watson. Just let me sleep a moment." I move to lie across the hard wooden bench when a hand halts my progression and leads my head to his rest against his thigh.

"You should not sleep." He argues even as his hand comes to rest on my shoulder. I sleepily rub my face into the cloth of his trousers, inching farther up his leg until I can feel the muscles tense. I can hear his exaggerated sigh and the hand resting on my shoulder slips to the back of my neck where warm fingers linger. "I will have to wake you every few hours."

I wait until he is focused on the men around us and I should be deep in my pretend slumber before I make my first move. It is nothing to moan lightly in my sleep, to tuck a hand against my cheek and let my fingers dangle innocently against the inside of his thigh. A hand runs gently through my hair and I feel his breath on my face, he is looking down at me, I dare to peek up at him beneath my eyelashes and it is written there for all the word to see and observe if they would.

A blush upon my Watsons cheeks.

Another hour passes before Watson gently rouses me; he lets me linger in his lap as he looks into my eyes and asks me the simple silly questions only doctors ever ask. Satisfied he nods and removes his hands from my body, allowing me to slip back into sleep if I should wish to.

I sit up, levering my body slowly using the hand still anchored on his leg. I watch carefully but not even a hint of the blush remains now that he knows I am watching. I swing my legs on the opposite side of the bench of his and I lay my head on his shoulder. He does not move as I fidget trying to get comfortable again. Beside me two men sit in the space I once lay, I stifle a laugh at the perfection of it. Watson stiffens against me.

The man directly at my side is the sizable drunk I had pointed out earlier.

His arm moves to still me and call my attention to what is happening at my side but I grasp his arm and hold it against my chest, using it as leverage as I rest my head just below his shoulder on his back.

I listen as his heartbeat calms as the man makes no move against us and I wait until fear can have no effect on his heart before I cling to his arm, holding it as if in an embrace, I let one hand slip next to his in my lap, let our fingers touch and lay against each other and I sigh as if only moving in my sleep.

Inescapable, it pounds in my head. The rhythm of his heart pounding like a wardrum.

My own heart leaps and accelerates its pace to match my companions. I have my deduction, I have my proof. One thing lingers in the back of my mind but my answer is already laid out before me.

My touch has the power to make Watson blush, my embrace can make his heart race.

My touch lacks nothing that Mary's may bring out in him.

And yet he is leaving me anyway.

I had been asking the wrong question all along.

I release my almost desperate hold on him, moving silently to face him in the dark anonymity of our temporary prison. Our main source of light is that of the full moon lighting the contours of his face, a romantic setting that would no doubt color the pages of his novels in days to come.

"Holmes?" His voice is a worried whisper, before I can take another breath his cool hand is against my cheek. "Are you feeling ill?"

I reach up and take his hand purposefully into my own, pulling it into my lap I let our fingers entwine and I hold his hand in mine. Our eyes meet and it happens without words. His face does not change, there is nothing even I am keen enough to observe in it but there is understanding. This time he lets the blush come, pink and silver in the moonlight, he lets me dissect him.

I wonder what else my Watson has been able to hide from me?

He knows the words are coming before they leave my mouth; his hand tightens around my own, hidden by the darkness.

'Why are you leaving me?'

"Why can't you stay with me?"

His eyes are clear and his face untroubled, he has the peaceful, hopeless resolution of a man who has made up his mind, the resolution of a man with no other choices left to him.

"The law doesn't make exceptions for the brilliant. Oscar Wilde will not survive his term in Reading Gaol, a witch hunt is on its way."

"Wilde ran with prostitutes and a boy on his arm."

"You keep no better company and have lived alone with another man for too many years."

"Even if they wanted to jail me they could never catch me."

He tries to fight it but the smile twists his lips. I try desperately not to look at our hands and the way he is stroking each of my fingers with his own, searching out the calluses and burns as if trying to memorize the feel of them.

"This" I shrug and the drunk on the bench behind me gives a loud snore "does not count."

His smile stays in place- but not the smile I long for, this smile has had a thousand companions and none of them have ever meant happiness for either of us. This smile is the one where I am breaking his heart.

"I will not see you locked away because of me."

His thumb brushes over my palm and I can't help the gasp that escapes my lips. I cannot explain the sequence of thoughts that took place in my mind, so automatic and instantaneous that before a second had gone by I knew the last piece of my Watson without knowledge of any of the intermediate steps.

His hand never stopped moving against my own.

His blush never faded.

Under my fingers, his pulse never slowed.

This is not physical desire.

This is not theoretical.

This is not friendship.

This is, in fact, being in love.

"So you…?"

"Yes." He nods. "And you…?"

"Yes. I believe so."

"You believe-?"

"I have never…Yes. Yes."

I can feel the heat rush to my own cheeks as I nod. I break our gaze and the image of our hands entwined in the moonlight engraves itself in my mind. Like pebbles thrown into a well oiled machine.

"How long have you know?"He asks calmly.

"You just told me."

"I meant- Oh. Just now?"

"Yes."

"You are not really injured at all are you?"

"No."

"We are not in danger are we?"

I open my mouth to answer but his laugh startles me. I look up and I cannot take my eyes off him. Not now. He motions behind me and it takes every ounce of will to take my eyes from him.

I stifle a laugh of my own but I can feel it bubbling up from somewhere deep within myself. Inevitable as daybreak.

My once formidable looking drunkard has inserted his thumb into his mouth in his sleep.

When I turn back it is there.

It is in his eyes as they watch me.

It is written in every muscle of his face.

The once smile I could not inspire in him.

The smile that says 'I am so in love'.

"You are still going to leave me aren't you?"

The smile does not falter, he captures my other hand in his own. Beside us the dawn approaches.

"You already knew the answer to that."

"And when you are married and gain seven pounds and forget about me in the monotony of happy days of normalcy and married life …will you miss me?"

Still he is smiling that smile even if the edges have slipped into that familiar pattern of heartbreak.

"Like missing a limb."

"Right arm or left? Do I merit the uninjured one?" For my efforts I get a dark, broken chuckle. The world around us is sleeping even as the first orange rays of sunlight approach to ruin the remnants of my life.

"Maybe one day we can be the way we were. Maybe it is fate that we end up two old men growing older together."

"A lifetime without my Boswell. How will I go on?"

"I will visit."

"It is not the same."

Watson lets out a sigh and I know every minute of our separate lives lay heavy before him, an inevitability of the dawn. His eyes pass over the sleeping and uncaring forms of our jailed companions and in the fading moonlight of novels he brings my scarred hand to his lips.

His smile pressed against my flesh.

"You should sleep." He drops my hand, still tingling with his kiss, with his touch, and folds his own hands in his lap as if nothing had ever happened between us.

"I am not tired." My blush is fading, my heart silent in my chest.

"Then pretend." My dearest friend whispers, the smile on his lips one I know Mary can never hope to earn. "and hold me until morning."


End file.
